The neuroscience of aha-moments

Written by: Bill Sherman on Sunday, 21 May 2006, 2:56 PM

The new Summer 2006 issue of Strategy + Business offers an excellent article on “The Neuroscience of Leadership.” A large part of this article focuses on “aha-moments” which it calls “moments of insight.” The article translates recent neuroscientific research about how the brain works into practical leadership advice. Here are a few key takeaways:

• If you, as a leader, want to facilitate change, you need to cultivate moments of insight within people rather than give them conclusions to “learn”
• “These findings suggest that at a moment of insight, a complex set of new [mental] connections is being created.”
• Moments of insight + focus can actually change the brain’s physical structure and produce new thought patterns and lasting behaviors

Aha-moments allow people to overcome their resistance to change, reorganize their thinking, and change their behaviors. While I’ve said that here in this blog before, this S+B article shows the neuroscience that supports this theory.

When I read this article, I had several aha-moments myself. I highly recommend it to leaders, marketers, and teachers who want to encourage people to change their behaviors.

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